The central theme of my Schizoaffective delusions for the past 12 years has been that I am observed by a power outside myself. On a good day I don't go around believing I'm being tracked by psychic government agents, angry mafia, or AI devices. Rationally I don't believe a hacker is watching me through my webcam, reading my facial expressions, and responding through manipulations of my browser and iTunes. In the past I have lived through periods of time when these things seemed real.
For a few weeks last Spring I came to believe NPR was covering up real truths in the world by reporting only on me, through metaphorical stories only I would understand. I reasoned that cameras and microphones in the apartment and outside my windows were pointed in on me to ascertain my reactions and in turn generate responses from the newscasters. A live broadcast of PRI's The World became a second-by-second relay of this elaborate psychic feedback system.
I ended up in the psychiatric hospital for a total of five weeks between the months of April and July because of these delusions. The doctors put me on 20mg Perphenazine (or Trilafon), and after my third visit to the ward I became well again. One morning in the hospital shower I realized that if dripping water could "say" the same things to me that the government spies and media were saying, it had to all be in my mind. I talked candidly to my new friends on the ward about my psychosis, which helped me slowly reconnect to reality.
Now I hold a part-time customer service job in a call center, I drive quite safely, I run my life without professional assistance other than a psych nurse for med management and a social worker I see regularly. It's been four months since that acute phase.
Yet still a vague sense of being observed causes me to wake up from naps feeling like a second party has just observed my dreams...I will fix my dinner in a few minutes feeling like someone is critiquing my cooking skills...in public I cannot shake the feeling that there are always eyes from every direction on me. A second presence, in fact, seems to have watched me as I typed this.